Friday, 30 November 2012

How could I not reproduce an article with a title like that? I'm sure noy everyone today would agree, but the author has some compelling arguments.

One I used myself quite recently. "It's only apple juice, after all, Andrew." Cider is sort of apple juice.All the goodness couldn't have been lost in the making of it.

"CIDER, HEALTH BEVERAGE. Sometimes wish that those who write about eider would drink a pood deal more of it, and then they might write with more knowledge, and certainly with more discretion. It is remarkable what an amount of ignorance prevails with regard to the products of a tree quite as old as the establishment Glastonbury Abbey, if believe in old traditions. Joseph of Arimathea, are told, when came to what is known as Glastonbury, leaned on his staff, which, his weight, went down in the soft, rich, yielding soil, and there took root, and in due time became the holy thorn. Whilst loaning on his staff, Joseph drew from his wallet eastern fruit and proceeded eat it. In doing so, he scattered the pips, and from these sprang up those apple trees that furnish the blood-red cider, no other county England producing the like. There is no doubt that the holy thorn grew in Glastonbury, and so do the apple trees. We know that good cider has been made, and is still being made, in Somerset, and I have seen many a good old labourer march off with his two-gallon bottle the morning and bring it back and set it down empty beside the cider house door in the evening; and be ready take his pail on lis head to milking o'clock next morning. Why he could do this was because it was pure cider, and not a concoction that he had drunk. Now, a town dweller gets knocked over because he has drunk five pints of cider. He is given twenty-one days in which to reflect, and at the same time cider gets bad name. If there is is one thing that I detest, it is to see drunken person, and, happily, we see fewer them today. We see hardly any in country districts and cider is still freely drunk there. I trust it will, for many year to come. I am no braggart, but I think that I have sampled cider made in most of, or from most of, the cidermaking countries of the globe, and I believe that my old friend, Mr John Ettle, of Weston-super-Mare, will bear out my statement that, once having tasted cider that was made in Germany, be it in time war or peace, never want to make its acquaintance again, whether at home or in Holland. I think that I have sampled most of the show ciders that have been exhibited in England during the past 15 years, and I have had to taste and sample and place in order merit as many as 184 bottles and casks day. If cider were so terribly intoxicating, what should I have been like at the finish ? The fact is, cider does no harm long as it in pure. Cider is not a teetotal beverage, though containing much less alcohol than so-called non-intoxicating beverages. Here open challenge. Let anyone obtain 20 bottles of ciders not more nor less than six weeks old; also 20 bottles of brewed stone-ginger beer of the same age from 20 different makers, and send them to the Bristol University for analysis. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that the stone-ginger would show the greater quantity of alcohol, either by weight or volume. The regulations at the Bath and West of England, the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and the Brewers' Exhibition in London, require that cider shall shown pure, and the chemist either precedes or follows the judge. Now, in all the long years these competitions have been held, a first prize has never been awarded to cider showing 6 per cent, of alcohol. At the Royal champion honours have been to a cider containing under 2 per cent, of alcohol. It will generally be found that there have been more ciders shown containing 3 to 4 per cent, alcohol than any other figures. Thanks to modern investigations, the contents of cider are fairly well-known, particularly the solids, and when these and the amount of alcohol are out of recognised proportion, well, the judge begins to think of either added sugar or added spirit, or both.

"Chambers' Encyclopaedia" states that cider contains from 4 to 10 per cent absolute alcohol. I wish its able editor would only send me a few grafts of the apple that has a sufficiency of solids in the form of sugars, to convert into 10 per cent. of absolute alcohol in the cider, even if it was fermented to comply with the regulations of the dry class at the Bath and West. Few realise that cider is, or should be, the purest beverage on earth. The juices are drawn from the soil, filtered by passing the trunk of the tree and through the branches, refined and perfected by sunshine, the greatest purifier of all. The apple is then crushed, the liquids squeezed out from the coarser parts, skin, core, & c . The juice is then put a clean barrel. The yeasts that are on the skins of the apples are then set to break up the fruit sugars, and fermentation takes place. This goes on until sufficiency of alcohol has been developed to act as a preservative. As the alcohol becomes more pronounced, the yeasts become weaker, until they are killed off the very product they have developed. The resultant liquor is all that cider should be, needs to be. If bright-looking cider is required the filter may be used. This, of course, takes from, rather than adds. If water be used to dilute the beverage, all kinds of fakes are used to restore the body — sugar candy, burnt sugar, caramel, boiled parsnips, beet roots, even beef, gingerbread, and anatto, just, of course, for appearance sake. Then the cider so weakened that anti-ferments, or preservatives, are added. The Devonshire practice of matchng or sulphuring leaves its distinctive trace on the tongue. Then there is salicylic acid, and others more harmful, as, I have cause to remember when I was not quite so well experienced as to cause and effect as now. The cider-makmg industry is a most important one to west England farmers particularly, and this being so, I have endeavoured show that whilst cider cannot mask as a non-intoxicant, yet, on the other hand, with ordinary table consumption, it can hardly hardly be styled an intoxicant. Of course. to sit and empty couple of bottles at a sitting would be different from taking half a gallon into the hayfield. The latter might be more than excusable, even necessary. Apart from being a mere beverage. Cider has decided medicinal properties of great value.Western Daily Press - Thursday 31 December 1914, page 3.

Drinking two gallons of cider during the day, but still able to get up before dawn to milk. They don't make farm labourers like they used to. Two gallons. Even if it were just 3 or 4% ABV, that's still a fair amount of booze to get through in a day.

That's not such an appetising list of adulterants. Boiled parsnips? I prefer mine roasted. Talking of which, I did some really nice ones on Sunday. Caramelised, but not quite burnt. Yummy. Wouldn't want them in my cider, though.

Did you notice the dig at the germans there? Saying how crap German cider was. Though, to give him his die, the author does seem to know a thing or two about cider.

Thursday, 29 November 2012

Though I don't mean the type of home brewing in the modern sense. Domestic brewing is probably a better description of it. Where farmers or other large households brewed for their own consumption and those of their workers.

It had been very widespread in the 18th century, but gradually declined in the 19th century, due to a number of factors. The greatest probably that between 1830 and 1880 private brewers had to pay the full tax, as duty was levied on the raw materials. The only real economic advantage the domestic brewer had was being able to use ingredients banned in commercial brewing, such as raw grain.

The increasing gap between the quality of home-brewed and commercial beer was another important factor. There had been little difference in the equipment and techniques employed in a domestic brewery and a commercial one in the early 18th century. Technological advances, which had mostly passed the private brewer by, had given commercial brewers much greater control of the brewing process. Put simply, home-brewed beer could seldom match commercially-brewed beer in quality.

Commercially-brewed beer had also been relatively cheap before the outbreak of war. The increased excise duty changed that.

"HOME BREWED.
The "haapenny the haupint bexter" has filled the Essex and other East Coast peasantry with economic ideas, as how to circumvent such an outlay, to wash the hayseeds and the wheat and barley "hiles" from their throats. And this has taken the form of reverting to the old practice of brewing their ales, an excellent practice that the farmers will not condemn. The average home-brewed is made from malt and hops only, but that malt and hops are not so easily obtainable as they were a few years ago. I wonder how many calls would have to be made to Bristol a sack of malt and seven pounds of hops could be obtained. And then the smell and taste of sweet wort, the aromatic perfume of the hops in the old farmhouse copper, or as the liquor is set out to cool. The nine gallons of "stingo" that would prevent frostbite on a winter's morning, and the big barrel of small ale that got harder and harder as the summer drew on, until it veritably made one's eyes strike fire to drink it. A quart of West Countree "crab vergis" was mild as compared with it. Of late years this home-brewing has been a very declining industry. The popular taste has tended towards the lighter, more palatable non-deposit beers being produced by our modern brewers; but to have to pay eightpence duty on what has hitherto been sixpence per gallon harvest ale will certainly turn many a farmer's thought in the direction of his own mash-tub in non-cider-making counties. Happily, the practice of giving drinks at harvestide to agricultural workers is being replaced by extra money, a gain alike to the farmer and the labourer. And bearing this in mind, we shall not see the Excise increased to deal with the issue of licenses for brewing on the premises for home consumption only."
Western Daily Press - Thursday 31 December 1914, page 3.

The author points out the one big problem of starting to home brew again: getting hold of the materials. Difficult as it might have been in 1914, it would be completely impossible later in the war as brewing materials were rationed and allocated to brewers.

Note that this only applies to "non-cider-making counties". For the obvious reason that in cider-making counties cider still played the same role that beer once had in other parts of the country. And apples, unlike malt and hops, would always be obtainable.

Wednesday, 28 November 2012

While I'm on the topic of grists, I may as well do the ones for the Milds I've been boring you with. They aren't all that exciting, one or two unexpected ingredients excepted.

19th-century grists can be a great disappointment to those hoping to find exciting recipes. Porter and Stout aside, most beers had very simple grists with nothing other than base malt. It's not what I'd expected to find. But, after looking at the odd few thousand brewing records, it's clear that this is just how they brewed back then.

Over-complication is a modern failing. How many current beers have recipes that are more complicated than they need to be? My guess is quite a lot. I don't want to bore you with this, but one of my favourite beers of all time, Pretty Things XXXX Mild*, has just four ingredients. That's including water and yeast.

The London X Ales definitely have the edge in terms of grist complexity. Only Barclay Perkins ones were 100% pale malt. That these beers were pale in colour is attested by the use of white malt in some. That was the palest kind of pale malt.

The Courage grists really are unusual. I'd forgotten that they included brown malt. The percentage is pretty small so I wonder what the point was. It would have added a little colour, but also flavour. I wonder which was the prime reason for its use?

The limited amount of sugar used is also worth highlighting. Sugar had been a legal ingredient since 1847, but it wasn't immediately hugely popular. Whitbread was the first of the big London brewers to adopt it in a big way, coincidentally about exactly at this time. This is when these brewers began using sugar regularly:

Whitbread 1865
Truman 1876
Barclay Perkins 1880

When we finally get to the next instalment in this series, you'll see just how much Barclay Perkins grists were transformed by the Free Mash Tun Act.

What can I say about the provincial grists? Very little as they are, with a single exception, 100% base malt. The only exception is the Medway X Ale with its small amount of crystal malt. This is a very early sighting of crystal malt. But that's another topic we'll be learning more about later.

Almost forgot my other point: the differing gravities. You can see that London X Ale was over 1060º, the provincial ones around 1050º. There's a similar gravity gap all the way up the strength scale

That's me done. I'll leave you with the tables.

London X Ale grists in the 1860's

Date

Year

Brewer

Beer

OG

FG

ABV

App.
Atten-uation

lbs
hops/ qtr

hops
lb/brl

pale
malt

brown
malt

white
malt

sugar

14th May

1867

Barclay Perkins

X

1061.2

1018.6

5.64

69.68%

9.85

2.77

100.00%

2nd Oct

1868

Barclay Perkins

XX

1078.9

1024.7

7.18

68.77%

12.89

4.47

100.00%

2nd Oct

1868

Barclay Perkins

XXX

1092.8

1030.2

8.28

67.46%

14.21

5.90

100.00%

8th Jul

1867

Whitbread

X

1061.2

1020.2

5.42

66.97%

10.12

2.95

86.07%

13.93%

16th May

1867

Whitbread

XL

1071.2

1026.0

5.97

63.42%

9.01

3.05

85.25%

14.75%

3rd Jun

1867

Whitbread

XX

1082.3

1031.3

6.74

61.95%

9.09

3.21

85.96%

14.04%

3rd Jul

1865

Truman

X Ale

1067.3

1013.9

7.07

79.42%

9

2.78

64.71%

35.29%

4th Jul

1865

Truman

40/- Ale

1072.6

1020.8

6.85

71.37%

9

3.00

100.00%

22nd Aug

1865

Truman

XX Ale

1081.2

1020.5

8.03

74.74%

11.0

7.17

100.00%

22nd Aug

1865

Truman

XXX Ale

1088.9

1022.7

8.76

74.45%

11.0

10.15

100.00%

23rd July

1867

Courage

Ale X

1065.9

10.00

3.10

97.82%

2.18%

30th July

1867

Courage

Ale XX

1078.9

10.00

3.71

91.90%

3.05%

5.05%

Sources:

Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan
Archives document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/032 and LMA/4453/D/01/033.

Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London
Metropolitan Archives document numbers ACC/2305/1/572 and ACC/2305/08/275.

Truman brewing record held at the London Metropolitan
Archives document number B/THB/C/147.

Courage brewing record held at the London Metropolitan
Archives document number ACC/2305/08/275.

Provincial X Ale grists in the 1860's

Date

Year

Brewer

Beer

OG

FG

ABV

App.
Atten-uation

lbs
hops/ qtr

hops
lb/brl

pale malt

crystal malt

white
malt

1st Oct

1868

Tetley

X

1047.4

1020.8

3.52

56.14%

6.00

1.11

100.00%

2nd Oct

1868

Tetley

X1

1055.4

1019.4

4.76

65.00%

6.00

1.30

100.00%

5th Oct

1868

Tetley

X2

1062.0

1017.7

5.86

71.43%

8.00

2.00

100.00%

19th Oct

1868

Tetley

X3

1066.5

1022.2

5.86

66.67%

9.96

3.93

100.00%

17th Oct

1868

William Younger

X

1053

1023

3.97

56.60%

6.30

1.36

100.00%

24th Aug

1868

William Younger

XX

1057

1024

4.37

57.89%

9.58

2.25

100.00%

26th Aug

1868

William Younger

XXX

1068

1028

5.29

58.82%

8.00

2.55

100.00%

18th Jun

1869

Medway

X

1051.5

8.00

1.75

96.88%

3.13%

2nd Jun

1869

Medway

XX

1066.8

9.00

2.63

100.00%

1864

Lovibond

X Ale

1050.4

1015.5

4.62

69.23%

10.50

3.15

100.00%

1864

Lovibond

XX Ale

1065.6

1015.0

6.70

77.20%

2.73

0.81

100.00%

1864

Lovibond

XXX Ale

1074.2

1016.6

7.62

77.61%

6.50

1.04

100.00%

1864

Lovibond

XXXX Ale

1085.3

1019.9

8.65

76.62%

10.50

2.01

100.00%

Sources:

Tetley brewing record held at the West Yorkshire Archive
Service, Leeds document number WYL756/16/ACC1903

William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing
Archive document number WY/6/1/2/21

Medway brewing record owned by me

Lovibond brewing record owned by me

* Dann has promised he'll be brewing it again soon. I can't wait to get my hands on some more of it.

Tuesday, 27 November 2012

If you've been paying attention, you should remember that William Murray was the first to build a brewery at Duddingston on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Several others would later follow.

Murray's launch was a modest affair, raising just £75,000. That's nothing compared to other brewery launches of the time.

"William Murray & Company (Limited), has been incorporated with a capital of £75,000 in £10 shares divided into 4000 Five per cent, Cumulative Preference shares and 35,000 Ordinary. The prospectus explains that the company has been formed, for the purpose of acquiring, carrying on, and extending the business of brewers and maltsters of William Murray & Company, Craigmillar Brewery, Edinburgh, and business incidental thereto. The Craigmillar Brewery was erected by the firm of William Murray & Company in 1887-8, and it is thought that its development may be further increased if members of the public and present and prospective customers of the brewery become shareholders in the incorporated company now proposed. The brewery is situated on ground (held in feu) adjoining the Duddingston Railway Station of the City of Edinburgh Suburban Branch of the North British Railway. There are railway sidings leading directly into the brewery. The extent of the ground (2.5 acres or thereby), admits of large extensions of the work. The brewery has an excellent supply of water from a well on the ground, and this water has been found well suited for brewing purposes. The assets to be acquired exclusive of goodwill are valued at £42,154, and the present issue of capital leaves £10,000 for new maltings to be erected by the company. It is certified that since April, 1895, the net profits, after making allowance for repairs, renewals, depreciation, and bad and doubtful debts, have annually averaged £6718, and that the sales up to the last balance on 30th June showed an increase of over 18 per cent. in the sales over the corresponding period of last year. The Ordinary shares are taken by the vendors, and all the Preference shares are offered for subscription. The lists open tomorrow (Wednesday)."
Glasgow Herald - Tuesday 14 December 1897, page 6.

£6718 is a pretty decent return on capital of £75,000, almost 10%. If the level of profit remained the same, there should have been plenty left to pay dividends to the shareholders. Unlike some of the dodgier flotations, that was the case a Murray. As we can see from their first annual general meeting:

"Wm. Murray & Co., Limited. - The first annual general meeting of the shareholders of William Murray & Co., Ltd., was held at the company's brewery, Craigmillar Park, Edinburgh, today - Mr Wm. Murray presiding. The secretary read the directors' report, and submitted the balance-sheet and profit and loss account as at 30th June. It was recommended, after providing for a dividend on the Preference shares, to pay 10s per share on the Ordinary shares, being at the rate of 10 per cent, per annum; to place £1000 to the reserve fund, and to carry forward the balance amounting to £876 10s 10d. The report was unanimously adopted. The retiring director, Mr Wm. Murray, was unanimously reelected, as were the auditors, Mesrs Robertson & Carson. C.A.
Edinburgh Evening News - Thursday 28 July 1898, page 4.

Let's work out how much profit they needed to pay those dividends. 5% on the 4,000 £10 Preference shares is £2,000. 10s per Ordinary share I reckon should be £1,750. (I'm assuming that 35,000 Ordinary shares is a misprint and that it should really be 3,500. Otherwise the share capital doesn't add up.) Add to those the £1,000 carried over and the £876 balance and you get £5,526. Reasonably close to the average of £6718.

This looks a much better investment that many of the other breweries. At least in the short term.

Monday, 26 November 2012

The more I read about this case, the more the absurdity of restrictive hours becomes apparent. And I can't help wondering what rules apply now.

Remember my recent trip to Folkestone. My mate with the car, Mikey, put an order in with Asda to be delivered to our hotel. It included alcohol. Well most of it was alcohol, in the form of cider. Could it only legally be delivered during permitted hours? Admittedly, these hours are quite generous now, but there are still times of the day when it's illegal to sell booze like, for example, Sunday morning.

"Criticism of the Decisions.

There can be no doubt
that the judgment of Lord Alness in Valentine v. Bell has been the
parent of what, fortified by the weighty opinion of Lord Clyde, one may
venture to suggest is an erroneous interpretation of the Act. The
grounds of his opinion, if analysed, are seen to be of little cogency.
He begins by saying that it would be absurd in one section to prohibit a
sale and in the next section to permit it. But why? What is more usual
and customary than to lay down a general rule and then to state the
exceptions? In any case, the Legislature, having prohibited sale in
Section 4, has explicitly been guilty of the absurdity of permitting it
in Section 5 (a), which provides that "nothing in the foregoing
provisions of this part of this Act shall be deemed to prohibit or
restrict the sale or supply to . . . any person of intoxicating liquor
in any licensed premises where he is residing." It is to be observed
that the rubric to Section 5 is " Exemptions and saving provisions," and
that in Section 4 the general prohibition of sale otherwise than during
the permitted hours is made " subject to the provisions of this part of
this Act." The general prohibition in Section 4 is subject to the
exemptions of certain classes of transactions specified in Section 5.
One class of exception is sale to a person resident in the licensed
premises, and another is a sale to a person of liquor for
off-consumption which he does not carry away but desires to be delivered
to his address.

The Report of the Royal Commission on
Licensing (England and Wales) exhibits the same erroneous reasoning.
Commenting on the exemption of ordering and dispatch, the Report says :
"It is not, of course, the sale itself but certain elements in the
transaction which are exempted : and it appears to us that this
provision is not so much an exemption as a declaratory provision which
makes it clear that the ordering or dispatch of the liquor, which are
mere steps in the transaction, can lawfully take place during
non-permitted hours. . . Having first begged the whole question
of interpretation by the "of course," the Report is compelled to assume
that in describing the provision as an exemption the Legislature did
not know what it was doing. But no sane person could assume that the
ordering of intoxicating liquor was struck at by anything in the first
four sections of the Act. A prohibition of the ordering of liquor would
be manifestly absurd. To send a postcard asking a wine merchant to
dispatch a bottle of whisky to one's address would be an offence not in
itself, not according to the time at which the postcard was posted, but
according to the time at which it reached the trader's establishment.
There was no need, therefore, to exempt the ordering as an element of a
transaction of sale from the provisions as to permitted hours, for there
was not, and could not be, anything to suggest that it was prohibited.
To give the words any sensible meaning at all, "the ordering of
intoxicating liquor to be consumed off the premises, or the dispatch of
the liquor so ordered," must be read not as referring disjunctively to
two separate elements of a transaction, but as a description of a kind
or class of transaction, of nature which in these days of telephones,
mail-order systems, and cash-on-delivery facilities, is tending ever
more largely to supersede the practice of personal attendance at the
establishment of the retailer.

The Remedy.

The
High Court decisions leave the off-licensed traders, and particularly
those who conduct a substantial order and delivery business, as, for
example, the great stores in London and the large provincial towns, in
considerable doubt as to their legal position. They are told that the
Act exempts order and dispatch from the provisions as to permitted
hours, but that sale is not exempted, and the ingenuity of the learned
Judges has been expended to show that every transaction in which liquor
is ordered and dispatched is a transaction in of sale! The loophole
described by Portia in Shylock's bond was creditable to her ingenuity,
and in the circumstances of the case it served the cause of substanial
justice. But in this matter of the application of permitted hours the
reduction of the exemption of sales by order and dispatch to a nullity
is much less laudable. The Legislature must have meant something by the
exemption, and its history shows that what it was intended to continue
and enlarge was the right to receive, accept and fulfil orders for
liquor by the dispatch of the goods without reference to the permit
hours, which even the Liquor Control Board had recognised as being
reasonable and in no way inconsistent with the maintenance of the system
of permitted hours and the accomplishment of its purposes.

The
decision of the King's Bench Division on a case stated by magistrates
is, of course, final, and unless the ruling of the High Court can be
tested by an indirect proceeding by means of a friendly test action,
alleviation of the present embarrassing situation must be sought in
legislation. The most satisfactory course would seem to be to exclude
off-licensed establishments from the operation of the permitted hours
altogether and to make them subject to the provisions of the Shops Acts,
1912 to 1928. This would render impracticable such evasions as were
practised by the promoters of "bottle parties" and "At homes," and
would enable traders who sell for off-consumption only and,
particularly, mixed traders in liquor and other commodities, to transact
their business in a more convenient manner."
Brewers' Journal 1934, page 250.

The final proposal, to free off-licences from the restriction of licensing hours and to treat them like any other shop is a very sensible one. So obviously that never happened. How well I remember the little blinds that used to come down over the booze shelves in supermarkets on a Sunday afternoon. What a total pain in the arse that was. One of the reasons I hated Sundays so much. That and the shityuy religious programmes on the telly.

Sunday, 25 November 2012

That title isn't a mouthful, is it? No, I didn't think so. Never mind. By popular demand (one person requested it) here are the grists for the Barclay Perkins Porters and Stouts mentioned in my 1859 EI recipe post.

What do they tell us? That Barclay Perkins had two types of Porter/Stout grist. The first, used for TT (Running Porter) and Hhd (Keeping Porter) was about 85% pale malt, 12% brown malt and 4% black malt. The second, used for all the Stouts and EI Porter 75%, 15% brown malt, 2% black malt and 8% amber malt. OK, I know some of the Stout grists have more brown and less pale malt, but I'm trying to generalise here.

It tells me that EI was a relatively classy beer, because it used a Stout-like grist including amber malt. And that, in general, the posher beers in the range got more brown and amber malt. Just look at the IBS. That's the top of the range Stout. Not just for Barclay Perkins, but for the whole world and the whole of time. Because that's Russian Stout. The original one, first brewed by Thrale.

The loyalty of London brewers to brown malt is also demonstrated. By this time in many regions - Ireland for example - Porter and Stout grists had been simplified to just pale and black malt. London brewers stuck with brown malt to the bitter end. Whitbread were still using it at Chiswell Street in the 1960's. Who would have guessed that Mackeson contained it?

Here's the table. Or rather tables. I've given the grists in both percentages and quarters. I suspect that in the 1850's Barclay operkins were using volume rather than weight quarters. Which means that a quarter of brown malt isn't the smae as a quarter of pale malt, because it's lighter. But, so you can make up your own minds, I've included a table with the raw number of quarters.

Barclay Perkins Porter and Stout grists in 1859
%age

Date

Year

Beer

Style

OG

FG

ABV

App.
Atten-uation

lbs
hops/ qtr

hops
lb/brl

Pitch
temp

pale
malt

brown
malt

black
malt

amber
malt

14th Oct

1859

TT

Porter

1060.1

1017.0

5.70

71.72%

16.79

4.06

68º

84.58%

12.03%

3.40%

19th Oct

1859

Hhd

Porter

1062.3

1016.5

6.06

73.53%

18.43

4.03

68º

82.65%

13.88%

3.47%

7th Oct

1859

FS Expt

Stout

1064.3

1016.5

6.32

74.32%

17.88

4.66

66.5º

74.02%

18.68%

3.19%

4.12%

10th Nov

1859

EI

Porter

1064.5

1016.5

6.36

74.43%

20.15

4.93

68º

73.02%

18.79%

3.52%

4.66%

5th Oct

1859

BS

Stout

1092.5

1028.5

8.47

69.20%

16.17

8.15

60.5º

66.38%

18.64%

2.64%

12.33%

21st Oct

1859

BS PU

Stout

1093.9

1029.0

8.59

69.12%

14.31

7.41

58.5º

63.73%

21.86%

2.84%

11.57%

9th Nov

1859

BS K

Stout

1094.2

1028.0

8.76

70.27%

19.93

9.40

58º

73.82%

15.78%

2.05%

8.35%

2nd Nov

1859

BS ex

Stout

1095.3

1029.0

8.77

69.57%

19.31

8.82

59º

73.82%

15.78%

2.05%

8.35%

25th Oct

1859

IBS

Stout

1105.3

1033.0

9.56

68.65%

15.19

9.60

57º

63.50%

22.56%

2.75%

11.19%

Source:

Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London
Metropolitan Archives document number ACC/2305/1/544.

Barclay Perkins Porter and Stout grists in 1859
in quarters

Date

Year

Beer

Style

OG

FG

ABV

App.
Atten-uation

lbs
hops/ qtr

hops
lb/brl

Pitch
temp

pale
malt

brown
malt

black
malt

amber
malt

14th Oct

1859

TT

Porter

1060.1

1017.0

5.70

71.72%

16.79

4.06

68º

265.83

50

14.125

19th Oct

1859

Hhd

Porter

1062.3

1016.5

6.06

73.53%

18.43

4.03

68º

180

40

10

7th Oct

1859

FS Expt

Stout

1064.3

1016.5

6.32

74.32%

17.88

4.66

66.5º

179.75

60

10.25

10

10th Nov

1859

EI

Porter

1064.5

1016.5

6.36

74.43%

20.15

4.93

68º

235

80

15

15

5th Oct

1859

BS

Stout

1092.5

1028.5

8.47

69.20%

16.17

8.15

60.5º

161.50

60

8.5

30

21st Oct

1859

BS PU

Stout

1093.9

1029.0

8.59

69.12%

14.31

7.41

58.5º

165.25

75

9.75

30

9th Nov

1859

BS K

Stout

1094.2

1028.0

8.76

70.27%

19.93

9.40

58º

265.25

75

9.75

30

2nd Nov

1859

BS ex

Stout

1095.3

1029.0

8.77

69.57%

19.31

8.82

59º

265.25

75

9.75

30

25th Oct

1859

IBS

Stout

1105.3

1033.0

9.56

68.65%

15.19

9.60

57º

170.25

80

9.75

30

Source:

Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London
Metropolitan Archives document number ACC/2305/1/544.

Saturday, 24 November 2012

I've been waiting to post this for ages. My intention was to chop the article up into digestible chunks, spiced with pithy and aposite comments from me. But I never quite got around to it.

Not that I really have today. I've just chopped it in half. I'm having arsing issues with anotating it properly for you. Just a few simple comments will have to suffice.

The theme of the article is the new licensing legislation after WW I, which made permanent most of the wartime restrictions on pub opening times and the permitted hours of off-licenses. There was a particular problem with the way the off trade operated in Scotland. Many off sales were through grocers, who delivered alcoholic drinks along with groceries. The tricky point was what constituted a sale? Was placing an order for later delivery a sale? And could alcohol be delivered outside licensing hours?

"Scottish Decisions.
The Royal Commission on Licensing (Scotland) in paragraph 210 of their Report, pointed out that "From the earliest times the licensed grocer has occupied a istinctive place in the licensing system of Scotland, and his business has always been recognised as a separate and distinct branch of the Trade particularly suited to the needs of the people." They added that: "There was little support before us for a policy of substituting for the licensed grocer a form of trade which may be called the off-licence pure and simple, that is to say, trade carried on by one who is not a victualler, but keeps a shop for the off-sale of excisable liquors only," The practice of placing orders for liquor for delivery together with other commodities is in Scotland widespread, and it is clear if the acceptance of orders for a particular class of goods and the dispatch of the goods in satisfaction of the order are restricted to a limited period during the day that the business of the licensed grocer will be seriously hampered. The Scottish Courts have, however, taken the view that the Licensing Act. 1921. does impose such a restriction, and their decision was mentioned with approval in the "bottle party" case and its reasoning was followed.

In 1930 the High Court of Justiciary considered the matter on a case stated by a magistrate (Valentine v. Bell 1930, J.C. 51). The appellant, a licensed grocer, had been convicted of selling liquor outside the permitted hours, and it appeared that two customers had entered his shop at 1 p.m., the period of permitted hours having terminated at 11.30 a.m., and had ordered and paid for supplies of liquor. The grocer put up the liquor and handed it, with the relative invoices, to his messenger-boy, instructing him to deliver the parcels at the purchasers' addresses. The boy was relieved of the liquor by the purchaser in each inscance, in the first at a distance of 15 yards and in the second at a distance of 30 yards from the grocer's premises. The Court upheld the conviction, but there was some divergence of view on the part of the judges as to the grounds of the decision. Lord Hunter thought that, in fact, the goods were handed directly to the customer. The licence-holder went through what his Lordship could only regard as the farce of getting a message-boy to carry the liquor a distance of a few yards. Lord Anderson was also of opinion that the liquor was delivered to the customers in the premises, for he regarded the message-boy as being the agent of the purchasers and not of the vendor, "The whole circumstances of the case," said Lord Hunter, "are such that while the licence-holder may have thought he was not committing an offence under the Act, it is clear that what he did was a scheme to evade the Act."

The Lord Justice Clerk (Lord Alness) was not content to rest his judgment upon the circumstances of the particular case, and the fact that the ordering and dispatch of the liquor were a mere pretence. He pointed out that Section 4 of the Licensing Act, 1921, prohibits the sale in licensed premises of intoxicating liquor to be consumed on or off the premises, except during the permitted hours, and continued : "At the outset it occurs to one to say that it would be absurd in one section to prohibit a sale and in the next section to permit it. Nothing so contrary to good sense and reason has, I apprehend, been enacted by the Legislature. Section 5 (b) permits not a sale but ordering, and ordering, I think, is something quite different from a sale. The section permits what in England has been termed 'an agreement to sell/ but still, in my judgment, sale remains prohibited under Section 4, Section 5 permits an order to be given for liquor during prohibited hours, but the word 1 ordering 9 appears to have been carefully chosen by the Legislature. It is in marked contrast to the word sale which is used in Section 5. A grocer may take an order within the prohibited hours, but may not, as I read it, take the order and complete the sale within those hours."

In the case of Sinclair v. Beattie (1934). S.L.T.40, a customer entered the shop of Beattie, a licensed grocer, at 9.45 a.m. and gave an order for half-a-dozen eggs, half a gill of whisky and three bottles of beer, for which she paid. Beattie's messenger conveying the goods to the customer's address, was stopped by the police in the street at 9.55 a.m. The magistrate held that the facts disclosed no offence and did not convict. When the case came before the High Court of Justiciary the majority held that there should have been a conviction. Lork Blackburn held that a verbal order for a supply of liquor, coupled with immediate payment, was a completed sale, and therefore, following the reasoning of Lord Alness in Valentine v. Bell, a contravention Of the Act. Lord Morison took the same view ; but it is not quite clear that he regarded payment as essential and there are passages in his judgment which suggest that an agreement to sell would be an offence irrespective of immediate payment. Lord Clyde, the Lord Justice General, dissented, and held that there was no offence. His view was that the Act prohibits an act of sale or supply completed in the licensed premises, and he held that the acceptance of an order and the dispatch of the goods in implement thereof was not such an act. " I do not believe," he said, " that the Act of 1921 was intended to prevent a wine merchant from accepting in his licensed premises a customer's order for a bottle or bottles of wine given outwith the permitted hours (whether the customer passes his cheque for the price at the time or whether the wine merchant gives him the usual credit), or from dispatching the wine so ordered to his customer's house outwith those hours."
Brewers' Journal 1934, pages 249 - 250.

You can see class issues rasing their ugly head again here. Who would place orders at a wine merchant? Not miners or dockers. Posh bastards. Obviously you wouldn't want to incovenience them with legislation primarily aimed at keeping drink out of the hands of the working classes. That's probably why the judges had so much trouble agreeing. Some didn't want to inconvenience people like themselves.